Dave is more than welcome to borrow one of ours, although the logistics of getting a Yamaha SS-30 down there may proove to be quite costly!

An alternative to that would be Si-W as he's much closer (Darlington)Dunno if he would hire out his beloved string machine, mind you if there's money involved he might bite yer hand off as he's tighter than twa coats o' paint!

The SS-30 did form part of Dave's FSE and prominently features on the brilliant Definitive Gaze . On the live shows Howard played this while Dave's hands were busy with his electric piano and Arp Odyssey Mk 1.

BTW Graeme which electric piano was it in those days?

Chris PS The SS-30 and the Odyssey Mk3 are slowly creeping up my synth wish list

fantastic and thanks for the offer. I'm seing Dave tonight (Monday) and will let him know and be in touch after that. Thank you so much again.

Chris

Dave used the Yamaha Cp70b Electric Piano like most keyboard players at the time (or the CP80 with more keys). We were discussing this piano the other day and Dave said he never liked his and wished he hadn't used it to record with on "Secondhand Daylight".

Originally posted by JesperDK: Graeme...I have a question. Hopefully youdon`t mind, and perhaps you know.Was it Dave who played the "rhythm"synthon The Damned Don`t Cry? And do you knowwhat synth was used? (PPG ???).

All The Best! Jesper

Jesper

As owner of a Pro-one I must say that the "rhythm" synth is none other than its big brother the Prophet 5, possibly a Revision 2. It's most likely that Dave played this one as he used to own this treasure. Although, I stand to be corrected. Let Graeme confirm.

Originally posted by JesperDK: A Prophet 5...WOW!!! Thanks a lot Chris!!! I have always wondered a lot about it...it`s such a cool riff and sound!

Grame will probaly confirm...

Hi Jesper

Just remembering that the Prophet 5, unlike the Pro-one, hasn't got an internal sequencer. This means that the (bass) rhythm would be programmed in a sequencer. This bass rhythm would be in sync with the electronic percussion. The bass rhythm would then be fed into a Prophet 5 for treatment ie by adjusting the LFO speed, the oscillators, the modulators and the envelopes.

So I would assume its a sequencer plus a Prophet 5.

Another possibility could be a sequencer plus an ARP Odyssey Mk III.

I would personally go for the first option.

I must say that The Anvil involved a lot of elaborate work. It also included an extraordinary array of synths including the Minimoog and the Oberheim Obx.

Yes,you are completely right Chris! That could be the way they did it.As far as I know, there is also a anothertrick you can do - the envelope followertrick - where the synth follows the rhythmof the drummachine, you just hit the noteson the keyboard and you got the rhythm fromthe drummachine and the sound from the synth.It may sound a little different, than if it wassequenced, I think. You can do that on the Minimoog Voyager if you got the MF-101 Moogerfooger filter with envelope follower.

The synth work was indeed very very cool on The Anvil - I´m also pretty sure the CS-80 was used.

Sorry for the confusion. I did indeed send the email to Paul as he's much nearer.

Thanks very much for the offer though mate.

As for the question as to which track/synth I'll ask Dave for you. Although "Damned Don't Cry" does indeed sound like (and probably is) a sequencer Dave did tell me a while ago that he played a lot of those kind of "Sequenced" parts by hand - think he mentioned "Night Train" as being one of those tracks.

Originally posted by Graeme:As for the question as to which track/synth I'll ask Dave for you. Although "Damned Don't Cry" does indeed sound like (and probably is) a sequencer Dave did tell me a while ago that he played a lot of those kind of "Sequenced" parts by hand - think he mentioned "Night Train" as being one of those tracks.

Thanks Graeme.

Please check if he fed the sequenced parts into a keyboard ie a Prophet 5 or ARP Odyssey. I'm very intrigued.

It would be great to sit down and have a coffee or tea with Dave and talk about the making of The Anvil.

As far as I know only Steve is taking part in the Sky TV makeover show although Dave (And probably the others) was asked.

Chris I'll try to do an interview with Dave on the Visage stuff. We were talking about doing some interviews earlier in the year to put on his mypace page, we've just been very tied up in the last couple of months on a new project.

Just remembering that the Prophet 5, unlike the Pro-one, hasn't got an internal sequencer. This means that the (bass) rhythm would be programmed in a sequencer. This bass rhythm would be in sync with the electronic percussion. The bass rhythm would then be fed into a Prophet 5 for treatment ie by adjusting the LFO speed, the oscillators, the modulators and the envelopes.

So I would assume its a sequencer plus a Prophet 5.

Another possibility could be a sequencer plus an ARP Odyssey Mk III.

Dave recently told me that the "rhythm" synth part on "Damned" was done on the Odyssey (not sure if it was Dave's or Billy's synth though)

The soft solo sound on Fade To Gray is also coming from Billy's Odyssey.

Moreover, all the "interludes" between tracks on Visage's debut album were done on a Fairlight CMI. Dave Formula performed those parts and Richard James Burgess took care of the programming. Richard also did a lot of the electronic percussion stuff on that album, using his prototype SDS5 (driven by the MC-8) and possibly SDS3s and CR-78.

Yes...I too know that the bass and the soloon Fade To Grey came from Billy´s Odyssey.I also got an interview with Billy somewherewhere he talks about Dave Formula "just" improvising the intro on Fade To Grey -on the Fairlight. I didn`t know about the interludes and theelectronic percussion/drums!